


You're gonna be just fine

by thepurplewombat



Series: Forever [2]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Khan is not okay, Kirk to the rescue, M/M, all tags are subject to change without notice, botanycameos is EMPEROR of catching things Arcana Missed-landia, i mistagged the relationship in this fic twice, that I know of, there will be no kirk/khan/spock, there will be no mirror Jim, waking up from cryosleep hurts like a sonofabitch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-24
Updated: 2014-03-03
Packaged: 2018-01-13 15:06:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1230961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepurplewombat/pseuds/thepurplewombat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Enterprise crew have a cunning plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BotanyCameos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BotanyCameos/gifts).



> This was originally intended to be a one-shot sequel to Just for a Moment, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen.  
> Be warned, updates will be slow.

Getting in was easier than Jim had ever hoped it could be. Just beam in and…there they were. Right down the aisle between the rows of tubes to the end and there it was, the last tube in the row, beloved face barely visible behind the ice-fogged window.

Spock faced him over the cryotube, his eyes serious.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.

Jim just stared at him for a long moment, tracker in his hand, and Spock shrugged.

“I understand wishing to rescue him, Captain, and I acknowledge that his sentence was…illogical. All things considered. But this is still highly illegal, and I merely wished to be sure that you were aware of all the possible repercussions.”

Jim managed a smile for his friend, but his mind was entirely on the tube and what it contained, and on the tracker and the million-to-one plan that Bones, of all the unlikely people, had come up with.

“Thank you, Spock. I understand.” And he put the tracker down on top of the tube. It adhered automatically and the little status light on top began to blink. Jim watched, holding his breath.

Red-red-red-red.

This was it.

This was the point where it could all go wrong.

Red-red-red-green.

They hadn’t been able to be a hundred percent sure that it would work.

Red-red-green-green.

They’d tested it, in shielded bases on distant moons, and it had worked. But those places hadn’t been on Earth, most defended planet in the Federation.

Red-green-green-green.

 _Here we go_ , he thought a bit giddily as

Green-green-green-green

the tell-tale whine of a transporter started, and the tube began to fade. _Moment of truth, Jim_.

He couldn’t have held his breath through the entire slow process, but it felt as though he had, felt as though he hadn’t breathed for an eternity when the tube was finally gone and he sighed.

There were no broadcasts allowed, no matter how badly he wanted to ask for a status update. Nothing on comms about this, they’d all agreed.

Just silence, Jim and Spock facing each other over the empty space where a cryotube had once been, and then the whine of a transporter and a new tube, identical to the other in every respect, between them. The single tracker was now two, two improvised signal boosters to let Scotty lock onto them, and they each scooped one up.

Stared at each other as they stuck them to their clothes – plain dark casuals, because you just didn’t break into Starfleet facilities wearing Starfleet uniform.

“Spock,” Jim said, reaching out as the lights began to flash. “Thank-“

But Spock raised his hand and shook his head.

“There is no need, Captain. You would have done the same for me.”

And then there was that timeless moment where Jim Kirk didn’t exist, and when he did exist again he was on the Enterprise, on his ship, and Scotty was grinning at him like a loon.

Jim grabbed him by the shoulders and just barely prevented himself from shaking his engineer.

“Where is he?” he demanded. “Is he okay?”

“Sickbay,” Scotty said, and “Doctor McCoy says the reanimation process is starting.”

The corridors were much too long. The amount of time it took to get from Engineering and the transporters to Sickbay was obscene, he’d have to speak to the ship’s designers…

And there he was, pale and cold and still on an operating table, Bones leaning over him to check on the tubes feeding warmed blood into his veins, the machines forcing his heart to pump.

He looked like a statue.

He looked _dead_ , but Jim didn’t care, just collapsed into the chair Sulu pressed him into and held on to the hot mug of…something, it didn’t really matter, that Uhura pressed into his hands. He couldn’t touch yet, couldn’t risk damaging the frozen skin with his warmth, but oh, how he wanted to.

He didn’t notice the passage of time, couldn’t care for anything beyond Bones’ occasional update.

“We’re doing fine, Jim,” he said once, and “Why don’t you get some sleep?”

Jim had just stared at him blankly, and Bones had moved on. The others had rotated, first Sulu, then Uhura sitting next to him in silence. Like a wake. Spock had been there briefly, giving Jim a firm nod across the room.

Jim must have dozed, because he was woken up by a scream, raw and primal and so full of pain and fear, and by the time he opened his eyes the cold still body had burst into motion, twisting and arching and trying to undo the bonds, trying to get away from the tubes that were pumping what must feel like liquid fire into his veins, and screaming screaming _screaming_.

Jim staggered across the room.

“Khan!” he cried, catching Khan’s face in his hands and forcing his head to turn – Jesus, the man had neck muscles like titanium. “Khan, you’re safe,” and he didn’t know that the wild blue eyes understood him, that the mind behind them recognized him, but the screaming and the tears petered out as he spoke, softly now. The words didn’t matter, the tone did, but he made the words as soothing as he could.

“You’re safe,” he said.

“You’re going to be okay.”

“I’ve got you.”

“I know it hurts, but you’re going to be okay now, Khan. You’re going to be fine, do you understand? We’ve got you, and it’s all going to be okay now.”

Stroking suddenly sweat-damp hair away from a still-too-cool forehead and keeping up a soft patter of comforting words, Jim sat down on the edge of the table, ignoring Bones as he bustled about, adjusting sedatives and checking on the pumps and equipment.

“You’re going to be just _fine_.”


	2. Chapter 2

Khan eventually fell back into unconsciousness, helped along by a generous dose of god-only-knows-what from Bones. Kirk stayed perched on the table, his hands moving through Khan’s hair slowly.  At this point, he was soothing himself as much as his lover.

“You knew it was going to hurt,” Bones said quietly. “Without the proper equipment…you knew it was going to hurt.”

Jim nodded.

“Yeah I just…was it like this before, do you think? When he woke up before? Did it hurt like this when Marcus woke him up?”

Bones was quiet, but his hand on Jim’s shoulder was firm and warm, and he dragged the chair over so that Jim could sit down and still be close. Close enough to run his fingers through Khan’s hair, to hold a chill hand in his and feel it slowly – so slowly, too fast and he could die – warm under his touch.

He dozed again, his face on his crossed arms, and when he woke up it was to a cool hand on the back of his neck and Khan still unconscious.

“He woke up for a bit,” Bones said as soon as Jim stirred. He looked like shit, stubbly and bleary-eyed – but he’d been up since well before they’d left on their mission, and he wouldn’t go to bed until Khan was awake, fully and properly. “I sedated him as soon as he moved. It’s still too early, give it another few hours.”

‘A few hours’ turned into a full day. Bones eventually fell asleep on the floor, and Jim covered him with a blanket and went back to his silent vigil.

McCoy had been the one to have the crazy idea, based on digging in suppressed files and a drunken rambling of Scotty’s. Scotty and Spock had made it work, but Bones, brilliant, angry Bones, had been the one to say ‘what if’ when everyone, including Jim, had all but given up hope. And when Jim had asked why, he’d glared and muttered something profane, and walked away.

“James,” the sound of his name murmured in _that_ voice brought him scurrying away from the sleeping doctor, and he bent over Khan and took his hand. Still a little cool, but there was a proper pulse at his wrist now, slow and steady, and that was what Bones had been the most worried about, that his body wouldn’t be able to recover from cryo twice, no matter how much they warmed it, no matter how many machines they attached. Jim had known better, of course.

His Khan had faced down armies and looked into the very mouth of hell, and he would not be defeated by this.

“What- what happened?” Khan asked and if the glorious voice was a bit breathless, Jim wasn’t going to say anything about it.

“They sentenced you to cryo,” he said simply. “Again. Knowing that you-“

“That I might not survive a second freezing,” Khan murmured, his voice bitter for all that it was soft, and closed his eyes again. “How very _civilized_ of them. Of course, they didn’t sentence me to _death_. That would be barbaric.”

Jim stroked his hair back from his forehead and sighed, and Khan looked at him again.

“And then?” he asked.

“They took you while Spock and I were filing the papers for your appeal. I got home and you were…and nobody would tell me where. We looked, we searched…”

“How long?” Khan breathed, and raised one hand – skeleton-thin, because he couldn’t eat with the trial hanging over him, and trembling with fatigue – to touch the silver at Jim’s temples, almost hidden in the blond. “How long was I…”

“Only three years,” Jim assured him, and kissed his forehead. “Only three years, but we couldn’t arouse suspicion and Nyota couldn’t access Starfleet’s classified files from offworld without setting alarms screaming, so we could only…we could only look for you while we were in the Sol system.” The three years had been endless, the mindless drudgery of what should have been their biggest adventure interspersed with those few frantic weeks in the home system, with Nyota so hopped up on caffeine she practically vibrated, her electronic minions scouring the locked systems of Starfleet for any clue, any hint to Khan’s location.

She’d come screaming into the bridge seventy hours into a seventy-two hour layover at Starbase one, ‘I’ve found him, I’ve only gone and fucking found him _,”_ all she could say. Khan smiled when Jim told him that, and murmured ‘always knew she secretly liked me’ in a smug voice.

“They all do,” Jim said. “Once they understood-“ once Jim and Spock together had _made them_ understand, what Khan had been through and who he was.

Khan lay still on the slab, breathing quietly for a little while.

“And now? What happens now, Captain?” he asked. “Do we…hide me? On some forgotten world somewhere?” He sounded resigned. Resigned and exhausted, for all that he’d been sleeping for three years.

Jim thought about a life spent in war, about being hated for something he didn’t have any control over. Of not a moment of peace, not a single gentle touch, and he thought about how _tired_ Khan must be. Tired of fighting, tired of caring.

Tired of being who he was, and having to scrabble with both hands and every skill he possessed just to stay alive, just to be _safe_ , just for a little while.

“Not unless you want to,” he said, and dropped another kiss on the weary face. “Nyota has a worm in the system, she can set up an identity for you. Whatever you want, whoever you want to be. We can drop you off wherever you want to go, Khan.”

Khan nodded, but something in the set of his mouth, in the lines around his eyes, gave Jim the courage to continue.

“She can set up a Starfleet identity just as easily,” Jim said. “I’d – we’d like it. If you stayed. But it’s up to you. I know you talked about…about having some quiet, some peace. And I want you to be happy, Khan. Whatever you want. Just say the word.”

Khan’s eyes flashed open and transfixed him, brilliant blue in the sickbay light, and his _face_. God, his face was  _transcendent_ , like a man who'd seen God, like Jim imagined his own looked, when he'd woken for the first time with this gorgeous creature, all moonlight and shadow, wrapped around him.

“Stay,” Khan said, and his hand wrapped around the back of Jim’s neck with surprising strength, and he pulled him closer. “I want to stay,” he said again.

And Jim couldn’t stop the grin that fought its way onto his face, not for all the world, not even when Khan kissed him and the whole world was _perfect._


	3. Chapter 3

Bones woke up not ten minutes later, and gave Jim a death glare for letting him sleep through it. Jim didn’t care.

“I should…”he paused. “I should go talk to Nyota, get your new identity set up. Will you be okay?”

Khan waved a hand, languorous and imperious even though it shook visibly. Too thin, too thin. Jim needed to feed him up a bit. A lot, actually.

“Go, James. I am sure Doctor McCoy will take excellent care of me.”

He smiled, though, as Jim caught his hand out of the air and pressed a kiss to its knuckles.

“I’ll be back.”

Nyota was on the bridge, monitoring a million different channels at once, but she smiled a brilliant wide smile at him as soon as he came in.

“How’s he doing?” she asked, taking Jim’s hand in both of hers. “I assume it’s going well?”

He nodded.

“Awake and himself, thank God. He wants to stay on the Enterprise, so can you…” he made spirit fingers with his free hand. “Do your magic?”

She grinned impishly and turned back to her console and pulled up a file. Chekhov and Sulu left their stations to join Jim in hovering over her shoulder, incidentally shielding her console from the sight of the security camera at the front of the bridge.

‘I could just resurrect his John Harrison identity,” she said, bringing that one up. “The charges were all wiped after we left for Qo’noS, so his record is clear.”

Jim took a moment to think about it, knowing that Khan trusted him in this, in picking the identity that would allow him to live among them in peace.

He thought about Khan, wearing a Starfleet uniform with Harrison emblazoned on it, and shuddered. “No,” he said. “Not that one.” Not Marcus’ name for him. His slave name, Khan had once snarled in a moment of unguarded bitterness. “He hates that name.”

Uhura nodded understandingly.

“Of course. In that case, Andrew Shepard is thirty-seven years old, a Lieutenant-Commander. Spent several years assigned to Special Tactics and Recon in his youth. Born in London but raised on Luna Base. What do you think?” Jim cast an eye over the file she brought up.

“It seems like a good fit for our boy,” Sulu said approvingly.

“This identity is solid?” Chekhov asked.

“As duranium,” she said. “It’s one of Marcus’ deep-cover agent identities. He had the kind of access I could only dream of, Pavel. Shepard, as far as Starfleet is concerned, is as real as you and me.”

“No picture,” Jim noted.

“Well, no. It’s a shell identity. Not visible to anyone but Marcus until it’s activated. So, we’re thinking Shepard then?”

Jim nodded and turned away as she added Khan’s photograph to the profile and activated it. The _Vengeance_ ’s black box had survived the crash, contrary to popular belief. It had taken Khan and Uhura, working together, nearly a week to hack through the multiple levels of security Marcus had installed on it, but they’d done it, and it had been a treasure trove of information.

Jim had never suspected how deep the rot actually went in Starfleet until he’d seen Marcus’ secret files. When he had, he was intensely glad he hadn’t followed his first instinct and handed the black box over untouched. If anyone in the upper echelons of Starfleet knew that Jim had had that data in his hands, even if he’d never looked at it, his life would be worth nothing. The Enterprise would have gone out on her five year mission and simply never seen again.

In the meantime, they could use Marcus’ data to keep Khan safe. Emotions aside, Jim had a feeling that they were going to need him before Starfleet was an organization worth serving again.

“Here we go,” Uhura said, handing Jim a data pad. “His file. He needs to memorize most of this, but that won’t be a problem for him. Tell him I said to get better soon. He owes me a game of chess.”

Jim nodded and clutched the pad to his chest as he left. He had no doubt that Nyota was already making arrangements to have the appropriate uniforms delivered. She’d take care of everything on that end. Jim just had to brief his lover on his new identity. God, the _access_ Marcus had had, to create a false identity in the most elite branch of Starfleet. The kind of clearance this identity gave Khan was so many orders of magnitude above Jim’s it hardly bore thinking about.

He heard the shouting before he reached the sickbay, and quickened his pace. Damn Bones anyway, did he have to pick a fight _now_?

“You need to tell him!” Bones was shouting. “Dammit, Khan! Spock, tell him.”

And there, miracle of miracles, was Spock’s even voice, clearly agreeing with McCoy.

But Jim skittered to a halt when he heard Khan roar over Spock’s voice.

“I _will not_! I refuse to tell him about this. He doesn’t need to know, do you understand?”

“Yes, he damn well does!” Bones shouted, just as loud.

“Why? Why cause him more pain, McCoy? Haven’t I brought him enough hurt already? Why do you want me to burden him with this, when he can’t change it and couldn’t have stopped it?”

Jim was close enough now to hear Spock’s response.

“Because he deserves to know, Khan. He needs to know.”

And now he could see into the sickbay, see Khan sitting hunched in one of the hospital-style beds, with Spock seated at his bedside and Bones pacing – if pacing was the word for the frantic to-and-fro storming that Bones was doing – the length of the room.

Khan mutely shook his head, his hair – longer than the last time Jim had seen him before he was taken, and it was obvious now that it was dry and messy, dark tangled curls framing his angular face  – falling into his eyes.

“No. I won’t tell him.”

Jim stepped into the room, deliberately noisy, and all three men’s eyes snapped to him.

“Tell me what, Khan?” he asked midly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit's about to get real.  
> Also, let's play Spot the Reference!


	4. Chapter 4

They froze, all three of them, and Khan’s mouth snapped shut.

Jim watched him breathe, slowly, in and out, and close his eyes.

“It’s nothing, James,” he said coolly. “Your crew are merely overreacting.”

Did it count as a lie if Khan clearly didn’t expect to be believed? Jim debated pretending to, for a moment. But just for a moment, because they’d never built their relationship on easy outs.

If Khan didn’t want to tell him, then he was at the very least going to _tell Jim that he didn’t want to tell him_.

“Try again, Khan,” was all he said as he sat down next to his lover, passing over the datapad with the new identity. He knew better than to hold onto it – there was nothing in the world more likely to make Khan flip his shit than the idea that he was being blackmailed.

“You don’t have to tell me, but at this point I would either have to be an idiot to believe there’s nothing going on or…nope, I’d have to be an idiot. So your options are, tell me what’s going on, or tell me that you don’t want to tell me. I mean, Spock and Bones won’t tell me if you don’t, so you don’t have to worry that I’ll find out from someone else. And I’d really like to know, incase I can help, or at least so that I don’t make things accidentally worse, but I trust you to make a rational decision to tell me things I need to know, and respect your right to _not_ tell me things that I don’t need to know. Does that…make any sense?”

Khan glanced at him from the corner of his eye. His mouth was twitching in that way it had when he was trying his hardest not to smile.

“Yeah,” Bones said, breaking the strange, fragile tension in the air. “He’s been spending a lot of time reading things like ‘How to be the Perfect Boyfriend.’ I think he’s broken.”

And there it was, Khan’s laugh, a deep belly-rumble of amusement. It didn’t last long, though, before he sighed.

“I don’t want to tell you,” he said. “It’s just going to upset you. But I understand the difference between wanting to and needing to and…” he breathed deep and closed his eyes. “They didn’t freeze me directly, once they had me. I am…unsure, how long I was held. From my hair growth…maybe a year? I was shaved once, and-“

“The oldest of the new batch of scars is about a year old,” Bones interjected. “I don’t know who had him, Jim, but if I ever get my hands on those sick bastards no power in the galaxy is going to save them. Can I show him the readouts, Khan?”

Khan nodded, eyes closed and body tense, and Jim found a datapad thrust into his hands. He skimmed it, then read it slowly, his eyes catching on words like ‘malnutrition’ and ‘assault’ and ‘torture.’ Catching, and refusing to move on until he closed them for a second, trying to stop the words flashing in his skull. Torture. Assault. While they’d been looking for a cryotube, Khan had been awake, had been alive and being hurt and…Jim closed his eyes and tried to breathe evenly.

“Did they say why they were doing it?” he asked, when he thought he could speak without screaming. “Did they give you anything to go on at all?”

Khan shook his bowed head and Jim reached out instinctively before stopping himself, his hand hovering over Khan’s thigh.

“Can I…”

Khan sighed, and covered Jim’s hand in his own, pressing it down on his own leg gently, as though he was afraid Jim might run.

“I’m not fragile, James. I’m not going to start screaming if you touch me.”

“I know, but…”

“Then think about it like this,” Khan said, and pierced Jim with his bluer-than-blue eyes. “Nothing that happened to me before I was frozen this time was new to me. Nothing happened that hadn’t happened before. I’m _fine_.” He broke off to glance aside as bones coughed meaningfully. “Emotionally, I mean. Physically, there may be…some damage. Nothing that won’t heal in time.”

“Do you have any clue who did this?” Jim asked. “Any…insignia, or anything?”

“I don’t want revenge, James,” Khan said quietly. “I just want to…be. For a time. Just be Khan and Kirk, together on the Enterprise. I just want to forget that any of this ever happened. Can we do that?”

Jim leaned against him, tangling their fingers together as Spock and Bones made themselves quietly scarce.

“I want nothing more than that, Khan, and you know it. And this isn’t about revenge, and it doesn’t have to be right now – I can wait, I swear I can. We need to know who these people were, though, and if they’re still operating we need to shut them down. This, what happened to you? Torturing someone and starving them and raping them – shut up, I can read between the lines of what Bones didn’t put in the report and you didn’t say and dear God, Khan, I’m so sorry this happened to you again – but this, this isn’t what Starfleet is about. These people have taken something noble and twisted it to their own ends, and I will be damned if I let them continue.”

Khan laughed softly and turned to press a kiss against Jim’s hair.

“My dear Captain. Ever the crusader. If it will help you, I can sketch the insignias I saw.”

“Good,” Jim nodded. “Good. But for now, sleep. You need your rest.”

“I slept for years, James,” Khan protested as Jim hopped off the bed and gently pushed him down, but his eyes were softly amused. “I’m hardly tired.”

“Then just lie there,” Jim said, “and I’ll sit here, and we’ll be quiet together. Just you and me, Khan. Kirk and Khan, on the Enterprise. At peace.”

“For a little while,” Khan said.

“For long enough,” Jim replied.

And it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is...done?  
> Did I actually finish a multi-part work?   
> *faints*
> 
> Is it awful? Do you hate it? There might be a sexytimes sequel but I have no idea when.


End file.
